Lindsay (The Legend) Just Not A Good Coach

They need to switch to some zone defenses. Match up, box and 1, zone trap, mix it up, this version of Gophers women's basketball doesn't have the foot speed outside of Powell to play man to man defense. The main reason is they simply don't have the depth ready to play man to man in conference play even if it is what is preferred by the head coach. You have to protect Sisoko and Micheaux, Powell, from picking up early fouls. Sisoko is far to important, you have to have her on the floor. I would sacrifice playing man just to stop the baseline drives that are killing them so far this season. If they don't adjust its going to be an awful long season without growth. Success breeds change, and belief and buys you time to develop and teach what you want long term.
 
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If you look around the sporting world you'll find being a great coach has very little to do with being a great player. A great coach needs to be a great teacher, communicator, psychologist and project manager. They don't need to be an expert in all facets of their sport - but must bring in the experts to fill those important holes (in this case defense, post play). Judging good coaching isn't as easy as wins/losses (as we see many point out in this forum). But some aspects should be easy to assess: Are players developing (improving) year over year? Are the players fundamentals solid, improving or getting worse? Mediocre talent can play with great fundamentals and still lose due to lack of high end talent. Talented players who fail due to poor fundamentals is entirely due to lack of discipline - resulting from coaches not impressing this upon the players or coaches unable to get the players to engage and buy in to what's being taught. Watching the last 4 years (and ignoring W/L), I see several of the above aspects having issues. This is what concerns me going forward.
 

They need to switch to some zone defenses. Match up, box and 1, zone trap, mix it up, this version of Gophers women's basketball doesn't have the foot speed outside of Powell to play man to man defense. The main reason is they simply don't have the depth ready to play man to man in conference play even if it is what is preferred by the head coach. You have to protect Sisoko and Micheaux, Powell, from picking up early fouls. Sisoko is far to important, you have to have her on the floor. I would sacrifice playing man just to stop the baseline drives that are killing them so far this season. If they don't adjust its going to be an awful long season without growth. Success breeds change, and belief and buys you time to develop and teach what you want long term.
I do agree mixing in some zone defenses could protect us from foul trouble as long as we work on not getting offensive fouls on picks .. you make good points, we have become to predictable on D with just man to man.
 

I think Coach Whalen needs to focus on getting some quality posts. She had the Bello sisters, but only one of them was really a D1 player. The other one was a hook. Bringing in transfers just because they played high school locally is not the answer. She obviously didn’t do her homework on LBK or on Helgren. LBK was a decent player in high school, but not a power five player. Helgren was barely in OK player in high school. She’s big, but her foot work, defense, and shooting have always been horrendous.
 

I think Coach Whalen needs to focus on getting some quality posts. She had the Bello sisters, but only one of them was really a D1 player. The other one was a hook. Bringing in transfers just because they played high school locally is not the answer. She obviously didn’t do her homework on LBK or on Helgren. LBK was a decent player in high school, but not a power five player. Helgren was barely in OK player in high school. She’s big, but her foot work, defense, and shooting have always been horrendous.
Bello sisters were old coach.. LBK, Helgren, Mershon were all stop-gap players that were not a bad get.. Experienced players that could blend in with the younger ones.. they have been around longer due to covid
 





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